Pawlet - 100 years ago

PAWLET &GT;&GT; The Pawlett Historical Society's spring program, "Pawlet One Hundred Years Ago" will be held on Thursday, May 26, at the Pawlet Town Hall, at 7 p.m,

internationally recognized photographer Eileen Travell will present a slideshow and talk about town resident Nellie Bushee, her glass plates documenting life in Pawlet, and the development of photography during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Today many are familiar with Bushee's name and a few of her images because of Susanne Rappaport's book "Messages from a Small Town," published in 2005. Nellie photographed her friends, family, neighbors, the interiors of their homes, gatherings on porches, and picnics on the grass. The details of their private lives — furnishings, wallpaper, rugs, curtains, decorative arts and clothing of the period—are revealed through her images.

Some 250 glass plate negatives taken by Bushee between 1895 and 1910, and donated to the PHS in 1984, are considered to be a gem of the society's photography collection. These glass plates were cleaned and organized by Neil Rappaport's students at Bennington College, among whom was upcoming program speaker Eileen Travell.

Travell is a Senior Photographer at The Metropolitan Museum of Art where she has worked for 27 years. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Sunday London Times, as well as The Washington Post Magazine. Her photographs are in the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Brooklyn Museum. Her two primary mentors were Neil Rappaport and Pat Adams.

For more information on the Pawlett Historical Society and its programming call or e-mail Steve Williams at 802-645-9529 or voorburg00@comcast.net.

TALK TO US

If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please
email us. We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by
filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.